by Beam, Brian
We dismounted, taking a needed rest from sitting astride the horses for so long. We fed our horses from the dwindling supply of oats that we’d acquired from a farmstead weeks prior, trying to ignore the fact that we currently had no food for ourselves.
We passed the time with idle conversation, in which Briscott began recounting humorous stories of his youth. He’d apparently led quite the adventurous life before settling down. He spoke of late nights at his hometown’s tavern, nights ending with mischief ranging from innocuously waking up townsfolk in the middle of the night after sneaking into the town’s church and ringing its bell, to collapsing a local farmer’s barn by “accidentally” spooking the horses within.
“What I wouldn’t give for some brandy right now,” I sighed at the end of a story in which consuming a bottle of brandy had led to Briscott misplacing his horse and waking up in a stranger’s kitchen. That stranger turned out to be Livia, the future Mrs. Erlat. “Besides warming me up, a little brandy would help me keep my promise to you, Briscott.”
“You’re not blighting getting out of that promise, Korin. If you don’t tell Sal’, I will,” Briscott threatened playfully. It seemed I’d backed myself into a corner, making me wish I’d never let my feelings for Sal’ be known.
Ithan shrugged. “I should probably be standing up for Saiyre, but honestly, I like you better, Korin.”
“Ha!” Briscott chortled. “See, you’re the favored suitor all around!” Briscott gave me a wink.
I rolled my eyes, unable to keep a smile from tugging at my lips. It was hard to recognize the direness of what we faced as we stood there. It was like we were in our own little bubble, separate from a world dominated by strife, even when that strife was literally visible as black smoke through the wall of white before us.
We continued our conversation, the dark clouds above making it hard to keep track of time. Eventually, my face numb and my clothing stiff, I accepted that something was wrong. I had no way of knowing exactly how long Max had been gone with the sun hidden, but surely it had been more than two hours. My thoughts flashed back to the day Max had been captured by Prexwin at the McAlwains’ cottage.
“Something’s wrong,” I decided, cutting off Briscott’s explanation of the fine distinction between Gualainian ales.
“Maybe it was just harder to pull Sal’ out of that blighted mess than he thought,” Briscott returned.
“Briscott’s right,” Ithan agreed.
“Blighting right, I am.”
Ithan sighed. “Seriously. Saiyre’s ring is connected to Salmaea’s, but at such close range, pinpointing her location would not be perfectly accurate. Max may have been forced to do a little searching on his own.”
I shook my head. Max was in trouble; I just knew it. I’d been burned for ignoring my gut before, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again. “No, something’s definitely wrong,” I insisted. “I’m going after him.”
As I made to mount Telis, Briscott grabbed my shoulder. “Korin, you know you can’t risk your life now.”
Anger shot warmth through my freezing body. “And if Max dies, then what? Where do we go? Do we head to Bherin and just hope that Raijom or my father or whoever else may be in control of Gualain’s army is there? Even if they are, do you think that we can just walk up and confront them without help? We need Max. We need Sal’. We need whatever information Sal’ and the Wizard Guard have gathered.”
“Korin,” Briscott spoke softly, making me realize I’d been screaming. “We have the prophecy on our side.”
I yanked my shoulder from Briscott’s grasp and climbed onto Telis’s saddle. It was time to put Max’s views on bravery to the test.
“I guess I never told you,” I began, taking hold of Telis’s reins, “I don’t believe in fate.”
Chapter 40
Come On, Baby
Briscott and Ithan reluctantly joined my advance towards Terafall. They probably figured that if I really had a chance of stopping Raijom and turning the tide of the war through prophecy, they should probably try and keep me alive. I wasn’t going to argue.
Halfway there, Ithan spotted a scout thanks to a suddenly restless Fleet and a soft green glow visible through the snow. We doubled back, praying we hadn’t been seen. We didn’t want to be drawn into a fight before we even reached the town.
We discussed having Briscott take down the scout with an arrow, but assuming that the green glow was from one of the rocks, it was possible that they were an innocent Gualainian forced into service. None of us would’ve been able to make the call to take the life of someone who wasn’t a threat to us, anyway. Besides, if the gusting winds pulled Briscott’s arrow off course, we could’ve ended up just drawing attention to ourselves.
Ithan claimed that he’d need to be much closer to incapacitate the scout with magic, making the risk of being seen too great to attempt doing so.
And so, once we were sure we hadn’t been noticed, we tethered the horses to a lone tree and proceeded to sneak into Terafall on foot. The heavy snow provided all the cover we needed to make it into the town without being seen.
We found ourselves pressed against the back of a modest wooden house, our ears assaulted by the deafening clamor of battle. Caustic smoke and ash filled the air, burning my eyes, nostrils, and throat. The dark gray clouds and thick snowfall made the day seem closer to nightfall than early afternoon.
“What do we do from here?” I whispered, desperately wishing I’d come up with even an inkling of a plan before heading into the war zone that was Terafall.
I heard a sudden ring of steel on steel, followed by a scream and a sickening thump around the corner of the house. My hand reflexively dropped to my shortsword’s hilt.
“I would advise locating a member of theWizard Guard and using them to find Salmaea. We could then use her ring to locate Max,” Ithan suggested, his voice tremulous and barely audible over what sounded like a building collapsing in on itself. With the thick, acrid smoke filling the air, there was a good chance that that was exactly what had caused the sound. Wooden structures are no match for fire.
“Easy enough,” I muttered. What could be more simple than finding a Wizard Guard member—one who didn’t secretly have a green rock underneath their robes—pulling them from the fight, convincing them that we were good guys, and getting them to tell us where Sal’ was? Maybe they’d just recognize Ithan and save us a heap of trouble.
I drew my sword and took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if my anxiety was due to worry for Max, the fact that I was about to rush into a Lanthos-blooded war, or the prospect of fulfilling my promise to Briscott when I found Sal’. And Lanthos—surprise, surprise—is the god of war, not to be confused with Vesteir, the warrior god. There’s a major distinction. You can be a warrior without fighting in a war. Conversely, you can fight in a war and be anything but a warrior.
“Are you two ready?” I asked.
“Ready as we’ll blighting ever be,” Briscott answered with a vicious smile, drawing his dagger. His bow and quiver were slung across his torso from shoulder to opposite hip. The gleam in his eyes exposed his appetite for revenge against those who represented the death of his family. I hoped it wouldn’t come down to us fighting, though.
Ithan just nodded, casting a wary glance to Fleet on his shoulder.
“All right, we need to stay together. We’ll stick to—” I was interrupted by the sound of splintering wood and a loud crash. Taking a deep breath against the tightness in my chest, I continued, “We’ll stick to the sides of the houses and try not to put ourselves out into the open. Do not fight anyone unless you have to; we want to refrain from drawing attention. Keep your eyes peeled for wizards, and if you see one fighting against the Gualainian troops, call out to them, even if they’re not part of the Wizard Guard. They may still be able to help us. If we see any sign of Sal’ or Max, we focus solely on getting to them. Any questions?”
“Will you two be offended if I wet my pants?” Ithan questioned with a hal
f-smile.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just made a joke,” I responded with a grin. It said a lot about my recent life that I could smile in such dire circumstances.
“And a blighting good one at that,” Briscott laughed. “Looks like we’ve got him out of his shell properly now, Korin.”
There was a sudden flash of light, followed by mortal screams and something that sounded like a landslide. Our mood instantly sobered.
“Follow me,” I commanded, sidling my way to the corner of the house. With a speeding heart, a granite stomach, and burning lungs, I leaned out to assess what was around the corner.
Now, I already mentioned that my hope was that we wouldn’t have to fight. I’d held this naïve notion that maybe we could sneak around alleyways until we found someone who could help us. Apparently, this was in no way meant to be.
My eyes met a scene unlike anything I’d ever seen.
Entropic chaos enveloped the town. There was no order to the fighting, no distinct line between the two sides. There was simply a swarming mass of bodies—alive, undead, and just dead, some with visible green glows emitting from their chests, and some without. Some wore armor, and some wore nothing more than tattered rags. Some were robed wizards, though few wore the blue and black tabards of the Wizard Guard. The bodies of the dead were strewn about, uncaringly trampled by feet and horse hooves.
Weapons met weapons, the clanging collision of metal ringing through the din of fighting. Weapons met flesh, blood spraying across the tamped snow and churned mud of the unpaved streets of Terafall. The undead met the living, bringing about the same bloody results in a far grislier fashion.
Flames shot from the hands of wizards, leaving bodies charred beyond recognition in their wake. Buildings burned, having been either accidentally or deliberately set aflame by the warring wizards. With the way that some of the still, mangled bodies—some not quite whole—lay on the cold ground, I assumed there had to be other forms of offensive magic being used as well.
Snow and ash fell in tandem, the ground a mixture of white, black, and red. I could see that several burned houses had collapsed, verifying the sounds I’d heard before gaining sight of the battle.
Screams of the dying rent the air with anguished passion.
The entire scene threatened to send me into a convulsive bout of sicking up on the ground before me. I’d seen some gruesome sights during my journey, but this was on such a large scale that I had trouble even processing it. Men were dying horrifically before my eyes. I could make out bodies of women and children, ones who hadn’t been able to escape, littered amongst the dead and twice-dead—that’s what I started calling the undead who’d fallen.
Terafall’s streets represented a temporal manifestation of Rizear’s domain: an exemplary display of death. Needless death. There is no way to brace yourself for such carnage, and unless you are just a sick bastard, there is no way to face it with apathy. The problem was, I had no choice but to do so.
“The town is in chaos,” I called back to Ithan and Briscott, my words striking me as the understatement of the century. “I’ve spotted a few wizards from the Wizard Guard. We need to head out and get their attention. Ithan, once we do, Briscott and I will cover you while you pull them from the battle. Then we’ll fall back to a safe position to get information from them. I’m relying on them recognizing you, Ithan.”
“There is a good chance of that,” Ithan spoke over the cacophonic battle. “Most wizards spend a good amount of time in the Vault during their studies.” His tone exuded bravery, but his amber eyes conveyed pure fear. I think we all felt the same: terrified on the inside yet forced to act otherwise.
Nodding in reply and swallowing back the rising bile in my throat, I started around the corner of the thatch-roofed house. Life ceased to feel real. Reality was exchanged for a sense of surrealistic blur. Sounds became fuzzy. The already gray light of the snowy day seemed to dim around the edges of my vision as the macabre details of the fighting drew into a sharp focus.
I kept my body pressed against the house as I moved forward, allowing only a speedy look back to make sure Ithan and Briscott were following. Their faces were as drained of blood as I imagined mine to be, but they were there, and we were officially putting truth to Max’s definition of bravery.
We advanced down the side wall of the house, stopping midway to assess the battle. I scanned the fray for any sign of wizards who could assist us. Before I could spot any, a body shot backwards towards us as if propelled by a giant slingshot. I barely turned away in time as the body slammed into the house, literally cracking the wooden planks before crumpling lifelessly at my feet.
The fallen soldier wore chainmail under a green tabard. There was a gaping hole in his abdomen, his viscera spilling forth. His face, contorted in pain, was that of a scared young man, too young to be in this war. Too young to die. When I looked back up, it was to a white-faced Ithan, his eyes widened in terror. He appeared to be having my same thought: what had we gotten ourselves into?
Trying to retain even a shred of my resolve, I turned back to the chaotic battle. On the fringes of the melee, I spotted a member of Wizard Guard falling back from the fight. He held a hand against his flank and looked ready to drop dead from pure exhaustion. No one else seemed to pay any mind the lone figure staggering away from their bloody combat.
“Ithan, there!” I shouted, pointing at the nearly collapsed wizard a half dozen paces from us.
Ithan nodded and, with a deep breath, ran out from the wall. Briscott and I followed. We would protect Ithan the best we could until he had his hands on the retreating wizard and we were able to withdraw safely.
A partially rotted body dressed in rags, half of its face eaten away to the bone and its left arm missing, broke out from the mass of clashing forces and crashed into the exhausted wizard. The wizard fell to the ground under the undead monster. He lifted his hand, but before he could release any magic, the attacking undead bit into his throat. It lifted its empty eye sockets in Ithan’s direction, bits of bloody flesh and windpipe dripping from its mouth.
The undead monster rose awkwardly to its blackened feet and started forward with a sickening rasp. Ithan lifted his hand and released a ball of sizzling, white-hot flame, brighter than any fire I’d ever seen before. The magic flame vanished upon impact with the undead creature, but not before literally disintegrating its head. Its now headless body, tendrils of black smoke rising from its neck, staggered forward a couple of jerky steps before collapsing. Despite a piercing screech, Fleet stood firm on Ithan’s shoulder the entire time.
As we retreated back to the house, the fighting before us spread to encompass the fallen wizard and the headless twice-dead, their carcasses trampled into the ground.
“Well, that didn’t blighting work,” Briscott announced bluntly.
My hand gripped my sword tightly. “Thank you for that profound insight, Briscott.”
“This is going to get us nowhere,” Ithan grated. The coldness in his voice drew my eyes away from the battle. His face was stone resolve, his hands clenched in tight fists. It hit me that his attack on the undead soldier was probably the first time he’d ever had to use lethal magic against a living being. Well, kind of living. Sadly, we didn’t have the benefit of time to deal with it.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “Maybe if we move further into the town, we can—”
My words were interrupted by a flash of brilliant light as if the sun had suddenly exploded through the clouds. We were thrown violently against the house by a concussive blast, our bodies crumpling to the ground afterward. When I lifted my aching head, I saw dozens of other bodies lying in a circular pattern around a man in a ragged wizard’s robe. He appeared dazed, oblivious to what was going on around him. From a rip in his tattered brown robe, I could see a bright green glow coming from his chest.
Those at the periphery of the circle of bodies still moved, but those closer to the incognizant wizard hadn’t been nearly as luc
ky. The living who’d been spared the brunt of the blast were painted with their blood.
“He’s lost his mind,” Ithan said as slowly rose to his feet. “He drew too much energy from himself, and now his mind is gone. Look.” Ithan pointed towards the wizard as a soldier in studded leather armor leapt upon him, knocking him to his back and then stabbing a red-stained sword through the his chest. The wizard hadn’t even blinked during the attack. There’d been nothing behind his vacant stare.
The very idea that the enslaved wizards could be forced to draw magic energy from their own bodies to the point of completely losing their sense of self was scary. That gave them the ability to cast incredibly powerful magic, unrestrained by the fear of the consequences. The ring of dead around the wizard’s now lifeless body was proof of how dangerous they could be.
Also disturbing was the idea that I could’ve similarly lost my own mind when Max had drawn magic energy from me. But that’s neither here, there, nor anywhere remotely close to what was important at this point. What was important was that the troops on the outer edge of the fighting were much closer to our position now, and as they regained their feet, more than one set of eyes alit on us.
“We’ve got to move,” I called. I was met with two agreeing nods.
I led us further into Terafall, hoping to find a spot where the fighting wasn’t so thick. As we came to the main road, however, I found that what we’d just experienced was probably as thinned as the battle got.
Take the description of the battle I gave before and multiply it by about ten. All I could see was violence and death. The air was thick with the scent of smoke, blood, and the dozens of rotting undead mixed among the hundreds of living troops. The bodies of the dead littered any open ground that I could make out. A new battle to keep my bile from exiting my mouth began.
I gestured to Briscott and Ithan to follow me and made a break along fronts of the houses down Terafall’s thoroughfare, determined to find a good place to hide and rethink our whole plan. We hadn’t made it far before four living men poured out from between two houses, causing us to come to an abrupt, sliding halt.